Morning Devotional
June 3, 2005
"Recovering From Burnout" (Part 3) 
    by Don Emmitte

Then he lay down and slept under the broom tree. But as he was sleeping, an angel touched him and told him, "Get up and eat!" He looked around and saw some bread baked on hot stones and a jar of water! So he ate and drank and lay down again. Then the angel of the LORD came again and touched him and said, "Get up and eat some more, for there is a long journey ahead of you."  So he got up and ate and drank, and the food gave him enough strength to travel forty days and forty nights to Mount Sinai, the mountain of God. There he came to a cave, where he spent the night. (1 Kings 19:5-9 NLT).

 

Third, Elijah then went to a place where he knew God had been real to his people. For Elijah, this was a special mountain on which God had once appeared to his people. For us, it may be rekindling our prayer time, our listening to Christian music, going back and visiting a spiritual retreat, or seeking prayer time with an old friend. The key is putting ourselves in a place where we know God has acted and blessed his people before. Yes we know God can act and reveal himself anywhere, but the act of submitting ourselves to him and reconnecting with our spiritual past is often vital for us as we seek to reawaken our heritage. This seeming inactivity is one of the most difficult steps to accept and accomplish in our desire to “fix” whatever problem we face. But, it is essential.

 

Compared with salamanders and starfish, mammals have a dismally limited ability to replace lost parts. But now reports of children growing back finger tips and spleens are changing that. In 1974, Cynthia Illingworth, an English physician specializing in emergency medicine, discovered that when children accidentally sever the fingertip (down to the first joint), the best treatment is no treatment. Cleaned and covered with a bandage, the fingertip, including the nail, grows back. In 11 or 12 weeks the new fingertip usually looks as if nothing had happened to it. There seem to be three requirements for this re-growth: the patient must be under 12 years old, the cut must be above the crease of the first joint, and surgeons must keep hands off the injury. Any operation performed on the finger destroys its ability to grow back. The last condition is the hardest to accept, admits Dr. Michael Bleicher, a pediatric surgeon at Mt. Sinai Hospital.

 

Let’s review the first three steps. First, admit you are burned out and in need. Second, get some physical and emotional rest. And, now, third, go to a place where you know you can more easily find God. Tomorrow we are going to see the last two steps. From my own life, I can tell you they work!